The Measure of Friendship
by biqua
Summary: It's been six years since the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, but the war between the Republic and the Empire has cooled only in name. Iscom Rigil is a veteran of the Cold War, but his placement as Badri Emras's XO may prove more than he can handle, especially when the Empire is searching for any opportunity to destroy what little the Republic has left.
1. Chapter 1

AN: This is not a happy story. I'm not going to lie and tell you that it is, but if you want to pretend it is, you can read up to about chapter 7 and then not finish the fic.

Also, there are literally no canon characters. This takes place about 4 years before SWTOR, so one of the characters does end up as the Trooper, but that's about it. So if OCs aren't your cup of tea, this isn't the fic for you.

With that out of the way, enjoy!

General fic warnings: Strong language, major character death, suicide mention and suicidal actions.

Warnings for this chapter: none.

* * *

If Iscom was honest with himself, the first thing he had noticed about the sergeant had been the eye patch.

Of course, it was rather distracting. A big metal circle on someone's face did catch the attention. But Iscom wasn't fond of admitting when he was prejudiced, even if it was a minor, stupid, little thing. He liked to think that he was above the idiots who had made a big deal out of his appearance when he was a kid. Those kids hadn't all been human either, although most of them had been. It probably had something to do with that whole majority-species thing. It gave them a sense of entitlement, or some other fancy explanation that adults used to rationalize away the stupidity of children.

Now, if Iscom was going to continue the honesty, the second thing he had noticed with his nervous smile. Something about the lopsided grin screamed, "New CO!" But it wasn't off-putting, not exactly. Just something that Iscom would have to remember when he said something completely medically inaccurate, or impossible. Commanding officers always had these ridiculous misconceptions about the limits of medical technology, that was just a fact.

"Hello," he said. "I am Sergeant Badri Emras." Iscom saluted smartly. The sergeant's voice was oddly hesitant, Iscom noticed. He spoke in a halting sort of way, almost as if he was unsure of his voice. Speech therapy, Iscom thought immediately, and wondered if the sergeant had a speech disorder.

Sergeant Emras laughed, "At ease. We're just getting to know each other." Iscom lowered his hand, still listening carefully to the strangeness of his speaking pattern. The others didn't seem to notice anything, but they were both new. And probably hadn't taken two speech pathology classes purely because they sounded interesting. But they didn't notice the sergeant's nervousness at being in change either, and that was because they were new.

"I'm going to be your commanding officer on the field," Sergeant Emras continued, "and I need to be able to trust all of you out there. I hope you can trust me as well. A team divided is never going to accomplish anything worthwhile." That nervous half-smile had come back, but Iscom could tell this wasn't his first ride. New officers, the ones fresh out of school, started with the speech about the glory of the Republic and her ideals, noble sacrifice, blah, blah, blah. New COs, the real ones, knew the importance of the team, the importance of trust. That was a sense you only got after being part of a team yourself, and Emras certainly had that sense.

"I seem to be at a disadvantage, here," said the sergeant. "You know who I am, but I'm afraid I only got this assignment now, so I don't know all of you."

Iscom felt a little of the tension he had been holding ease up. This guy must be good if the higher-ups were just throwing him into a team. Either that or he was truly terrible. He had worked his way up from enlisted, though, so it was likely the former.

"My name is Iscom Rigil, rank Corporal," Iscom said. There was no way either of the new graduates was going to be the first to speak up. "I will be serving as the team's field doctor." Hopefully he wouldn't be needed as much as he had been on his last assignment, although he wouldn't say that out loud. It would only serve to tempt fate.

It was the male graduate who spoke up next, which wasn't terribly surprising. Not that female graduates were quiet, not by any means, but this guy had seemed fidgety the whole time. "I'm Private Chertan Brash," he said, rather quickly. Casually, as if he didn't want to make it a big deal, but quickly. "No special training; I only joined last year." Which, also, was not a surprise to Iscom.

"And I'm Private Dune Yuo," the female said, letting the nervousness in her voice show. Show more than the other two, really. Iscom was even a little nervous himself, not that he was going to let it show. They'd been together all of two minutes and it already looked as if the team was going to need someone to hold them together.

"Well, now that we all know each other's names," the sergeant said, gaining some confidence, "I think it's time we got to know each other better. Seeing as we don't have any assignments currently, I recommend the cantina."

Iscom nearly let out a sigh of relief. The sergeant thought like a member of a team, not a stuck-up officer. First place to learn about people is on the field. When that fails, there's almost always a cantina around the corner.

"You paying, Sergeant?" asked Private Brash. Iscom wondered if he was looking for approval, or broke. Or both; he was fresh out of the academy, after all.

"It seems only fair," replied the sergeant, and Iscom felt like they got the first true smile from the cyborg they had seen. His eye took on a mischievous gleam when he said, "I take no responsibility for your actions there, though. This will be strictly off-duty socializing."

"I'm in," Private Brash said quickly.

Private Yuo looked over at Iscom, as if seeking his advice. He gave just the faintest of shrugs to indicate his approval. The sergeant caught his glance and smiled.

Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

* * *

"Well, it's been fun, but I really should get going," Yuo said nervously. Iscom laughed.

"What, afraid we're not going to let you go?" he asked her jokingly. "Go on, get some sleep. I'm sure we'll need it for tomorrow, if the Sergeant's record is anything to go on."

That got a laugh out of Emras as well. "See you in six hours," he said with a smirk.

"Six?" Brash asked drunkenly. "Damn! I—I should go," he said, standing up so quickly Iscom thought he was going to fall back over.

"Hey Rigil, can you stick around for a bit?" Emras asked him as the two privates made their way for the door, Yuo half holding Brash up.

"No problem," he said, setting down his empty glass. "I think I'll pass on the next round, though."

"Good choice," Emras said pensively, looking at his own. He twirled the glass around his finger before adding, "I think I will too. To business, then."

"Business? After this many drinks?" Iscom raised his eyebrow.

"I try to avoid talking about bureaucracy while sober," Emras replied. "You're my XO, though, and I think it's only fair that I'm blunt—er, straightforward—with you."

Iscom laughed at his apparent misspeak. "What's the difference?"

"Blunt means I get to swear more," Emras said seriously, closing his eye. He rubbed one temple carefully, tracing his finger around the metal that covered it.

Iscom shrugged, still laughing. "Blunt works just fine for me."

"Good, because it's a hell of a lot easier," Emras said. Iscom found his gaze drawn to the light on the temple he was rubbing, glowing blue at the end of the metal band. The band seemed to wrap around the back of the sergeant's head, although Iscom wondered if it really did, and why. Emras noticed his gaze and quickly moved his arm down. Iscom looked away awkwardly, feeling oddly guilty of some unspoken offence.

"I have never had any sort of command," Emras continued. "Hell, before today I was at the last rung of the ladder. Bottom of the pyramid. End of the rope. Etc., etc.," he said, waving his hand. "I have no clue what I'm doing, so I'm going to be relying on you for some of that. You are at least used to having people take your orders."

"That's true," Iscom said. "No one ever wants to piss off their medic."

Emras choked on a burst of laughter. "You are the medic. You don't understand how much the consequences of your anger affect the rest of us."

"Might I suggest trying not to get yourself blown up once a week then?" he suggested with a hint of sarcasm. "It does wonders for my mood."

"I'll keep it in mind," Emras assured him. "But as I was saying, this whole command thing is new to me. I know what I would want my commander to do, and I know what makes a commander good in the eyes of his team, but that's about it. What I do know," he said confidently, "is our assignment. We're on call here, on Coruscant, for security and rebuilding. For the next six months, at least," he added.

"The attack hit pretty hard, didn't it?" Iscom asked. There was a slight shift in Emras's posture. "I mean, I had never been here until after, but they're still rebuilding after almost seven years."

"You have no idea," Emras said. His tone was light, but there was an undertone there that suggested something else.

"You've been here before," Iscom said. It wasn't really a question, but it wasn't really a statement either. It was just something for the sergeant to respond to.

"I grew up here," Emras corrected. "Lived on Coruscant for all of my life. Before I signed up, that is." He continued before Iscom had a chance to get anything else out of him. "I know we've only just met, but I need to know if I can count on you. If you're okay with beating a new CO around the block a bit," he translated.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Iscom laughed. "I would be more worried with your own safety, sir," he said with a smile. Emras laughed as well.

"It's good to know we're on the same page, corporal," returning the use of rank with a smirk. He raised his glass as if he was about to toast, before realizing it was empty. He shrugged and held it up anyway.

"To last-minute assignments," he said. Iscom held up his own empty glass to knock the sergeant's.

"To six months on Coruscant," he echoed.

"Someplace with civilization, and actual cantinas," Emras sighed in relief. "I'm going to enjoy being back."


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings for this chapter: blood and injuries, me faking any knowledge of biology.

* * *

Emras was cut off mid-sentence by the grenade exploding under his feet.

"Watch out—!"

It all started with one little metal canister rolling on the ground in front of them, on a path straight between Sergeant Emras and Private Yuo. It had happened faster than any of them could react effectively. Emras shoved Yuo off to the side, but not quite fast enough. The explosion knocked Emras and Yuo away from each other, each landing hard on the ground. Despite that, Emras took most of the blast. Iscom could feel the heat ten meters back. Even in that split second he knew the burns would be bad, possibly life-threatening if not treated soon. He had seen what that sort of heat could do to flesh, and it was not pretty.

Brash and Iscom were on the attackers in seconds. It was only two-on-two, which made it all the easier for the troopers. Another time, Iscom would have laughed at how little of a challenge they were. But for now, it was a few quick shots so Iscom was free to focus on getting the rest of the team medical attention.

"Brash, take Yuo to the medcenter. Now!" he commanded, rushing over to the sergeant.

"Rigil?" Emras asked, looking over as Iscom approached.

"Don't talk; I have to get you stable," Iscom said quickly, tugging out his medical kit.

"I'm fine, I'm just not going anywhere anytime soon," Emras said casually.

Must be the shock, Iscom thought, taking a cursory glance over his injuries. It was difficult to tell under the armor, but the armor itself had been badly burnt all across his left side and down his leg. Iscom was attempting to remove some of the burnt pieces of the chest piece when Emras spoke again.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," said Emras, watching Iscom alertly.

"I have to stop any bleeding," Iscom said, pulling one piece off—and moved his fingers back so quickly that he dropped it. The sergeant's side was hot. Iscom looked at his hand to find the fingertips coated in a thin layer of metal, of all things. As if he had touched something that had melted...

"Sergeant," Iscom said cautiously, "how much of your body is cybernetic?"

"A lot?" Emras said, smiling weakly.

"A lot," Iscom repeated dully.

"Almost half," Emras admitted. "Completely cybernetic up to here," he said, using his right hand to indicate a spot about a fourth of the way across his chest, "and that arm. And the leg."

Iscom stared blankly at his CO. "That's all?" he asked, rather baffled. He had expected much less metal, and much more blood. Lots more blood. Actually, he had prepared himself for a bloody lot of blood, and now there was none. It was throwing him off.

"And part of my other leg," Emras continued to list. "And around three fifths of the bones in my body. And the ocular implant. And the spine and spinal cord. And the half-dozen biocomputers and biomech chips. And the second kidney. And the auxiliary liver. And most of my intestinal tract. And the part of my heart that works," he finished, stopping for a breath.

Iscom stared at him.

"Oh, and the pain inhibitor chip," Emras added. "And two-thirds of my vascular system. And—"

"Yes, well, with that list I can't say I'm surprised," Iscom cut him off, trying to peel the metal off the tips of his fingers. "That certainly explains a few things."

Emras looked at him curiously. "It does?"

"Well, no, not really," Iscom dismissed, temporarily giving up on getting the metal off. "Nothing except the lack of bleeding from your melted side. But it seemed like the appropriate thing to say."

Emras laughed. "Alright, I'll give you that one."

"Can you get up?" Iscom asked, taking a look at Emras's leg. It didn't look great, but then again, he was no expert in cybernetics.

"No," Emras answered without hesitation. "My leg's melted completely out of shape, not to mention my side. There's no way I can put weight on it like this."

"Alright, I'll get transport," Iscom said, pulling out his QT. "But once we get this taken care of, you're going to have some explaining to do," he said, punching in the coordinates.

"I figured," Emras sighed as they faded out.

* * *

"So," Iscom started. He leaned uncomfortably against the wall. Across from him, Emras was pulled into a sitting position on a folding bed, rather calm, considering everything.

They had, of course, managed to drop in at a rather busy time for the medcenter staff. A nurse had informed them on their arrival that there were no doctors free at that second, but if they could wait fifteen minutes or so, someone would be with them. Emras had insisted that he didn't need immediate attention, and so they were brought to the room. A nurse had been in for a short while, but only for long enough to do a preliminary and, by some miracle, take off the burnt pieces of armor that had been melting into the cybernetics.

Iscom had snuck out for a few minutes to avoid the overwhelming smell of burnt synthskin, and to check on Yuo—who did have doctors in her room—but her burns weren't as serious as they could have been. He had told Brash to wait in her room, partially to keep an eye on her, and partially to keep him out of Emras's room. The private had been worried about his CO; the first thing he asked Iscom about was Emras's status. Iscom had assured him that the sergeant was fine, that there was nothing to worry about, that he really should stay here with Yuo. There was no way he could explain what the sergeant... was to Brash without knowing himself, and he had a rather large suspicion that Emras was going to have enough trouble explaining everything to Iscom without having the hotheaded private asking questions as well.

The sergeant's silhouette on the bed reminded Iscom of a flimsiplast doll that had been left over a heater for too long. His leg was a twisted mess under the sheet. His side seemed to drip downwards where the metal had melted. His left arm was bent out at an odd angle. Yet despite all of that, there was almost no tissue damage. There were only a few old scars, a fading one wrapping his right shoulder around his neck, three or four that caught his right arm, and, most noticeably, a thin yet prominent scar around his left shoulder that fell down his chest and back, disappearing under the sheet pulled to his waist, that seemed much less healed than the others. Iscom wondered vaguely if it was new, and if it related to his cybernetics somehow.

Emras smiled, amused by Iscom's discomfort. "Where do I even start?" he asked.

Iscom looked back at his CO. The metal eye patch still covered his left eye. Iscom nodded at it. "Is that just a patch, or...?"

Emras laughed, reaching up with his right hand. He fiddled with it for a moment, and then removed his hand to reveal a cybernetic eye implant, the camera glowing a faint red.

"Completely blind without it," Emras said casually. Iscom blinked, not sure if he was staring or not. Emras seemed to become uncomfortable, and reattached the eye patch to the metal track around his implant.

"Sorry," he said, "I guess I... I don't know. I've never really done this before," he laughed.

"How long?" Iscom asked.

"Eight, nine months now?" Emras replied, understanding the half-asked question.

That was no time at all, particularly for as many cybernetics as Emras seemed to have: he had probably spent most of those eight-or-nine months in rehabilitation. And having so many, that probably meant... "You didn't get everything at once, did you?" Iscom asked incredulously.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Emras said with an exaggerated shrug. "Hell, I didn't have any choice."

"What happened?" asked Iscom, pulling himself off the wall. He took the chair that had been left at the side of the bed, presumably for visitors, although it might have been meant for a doctor.

"Our ship was shot down," Emras said simply, "and a rather large portion of it fell on me."

"So it's prosthetics," surmised Iscom. "Including the biocomputers?"

Emras gave him a smirk. "I'm going through two of them right now just to tell you that. Movement and verbal processing. Although you could count vision and body regulation if you were in that sort of a mood and make it three and a biomech chip."

Well, that explained his speaking pattern. Having an artificial speech processor in your brain would probably make you a little hesitant when you spoke.

"Excuse me."

Iscom spun the chair around to look at the door. There was a doctor standing there, which wasn't a huge surprise. It was rather annoying that he had picked the exact moment when Emras was starting to explain things to arrive, though.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," he said, and Iscom suppressed his eyeroll, "but we're ready to begin work on Sergeant Emras now."

"Go ahead," Iscom said, standing up. "He's all yours."

"Hey!" Emras protested, jokingly. "You're just going to leave now?"

"Let this be a lesson on why it's not smart to keep secrets from your medical specialist," Iscom said with all the seriousness he could muster.

"Cantina, tomorrow night?" Emras asked. "The Broken Column has about the right noise level."

This time Iscom did laugh. "What, you have all the cantinas on this planet scoped out?"

Emras gave a shrug, but only his right shoulder moved. "I've had plenty of time. I grew up here, remember?"

"Ah, right, you're a Coruscant boy," Iscom remembered. "And here I thought you were just a drunk."

The doctor gave a slight clearing of his throat. Right. It was probably past time for Iscom to go.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Iscom said. "Buzz me when you get out of surgery, or whatever it is that you get in to. I'm going to check back in on Yuo."

"Tell me if her condition changes at all," Emras said, a worried glance in his eye.

"You got it, commander," Iscom said with a casual salute. Emras gave an oddly weary smile, and Iscom headed off back down the hall.

* * *

Honestly, Emras stood out even when he was out of uniform.

"You know, I could have sworn I said something about not getting yourself blown up," Iscom said as he took the second seat at the sergeant's table.

"Sometimes the damndest things happen," Emras said with a smile. "And in my defense, it has been a week."

"Barely," Iscom muttered. Emras chuckled.

He pushed a glass over to Iscom. "First one's on me. Feel free to get yourself another round."

"I get the feeling I'll need it after this," Iscom said, taking the glass. "So, Emras," he started.

"Badri," the sergeant interrupted.

Iscom raised an eyebrow and lowered his drink. "First names already?" he asked.

Emras—Badri—flinched, just barely noticeable. "Just... names," he said awkwardly. "My name, not—just Badri, please," he requested.

Iscom shrugged. "Alright. Time for the mystery man to come clean," he said. Badri gave him a curious look, and Iscom explained, "I took the liberty of looking at your medical records—or trying to. It's blank. One useless stub of a log entry; that's it."

Badri seemed to realize something. "You looked for Badri Emras, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yeah?" Iscom replied. He was beginning feel confusion sneaking in, followed closely by a sinking bit of suspicion. "What else would I be looking under?"

"Uh," Badri said nervously.

"Spit it out," Iscom said flatly.

"My birth name?" Badri suggested with an apologetic smile.

Iscom gave him a long, hard stare, and then drained his glass in one go. "It's going to be a long night, isn't it?"

"Probably," Badri confirmed with a shrug.


	3. Chapter 3

Sergeant Emras motioned for another round. The drinks took a minute to arrive, but Iscom had already started his before the sergeant spoke again.

"It is Badri," he said. Noticing the look Iscom gave him, he added, "My birth name, I mean. Badri Javaid Ravjanday."

"I'll make sure to get the right files next time," Iscom said with a mock salute. Badri set his own drink down and pulled a miniholo out from under the table. As he set the holo down, Iscom noticed something odd about his hand— _no fingernails?_ How had he never noticed that before? Thinking about it, it became obvious. _Left hand, so cybernetic. And of course you wouldn't notice when he's wearing gloves—but what about other times?_ The obvious answer was that he hid it. Hadn't he been carefully working around his cybernetics, keeping the full extent of them hidden from the rest of the team. And, since he had gotten his cybernetics less than a year ago... _Bloody hell, I might be the first person he's ever told this too._

"Look, I don't know how to explain this, but I'll try my best." He spun the device around on the table, seemingly confirming Iscom's thoughts. "This," he said, lighting it up, "is me." An image of the sergeant floated above the table, presumably from his medical scans. It was a static replica, unmoving, unseeing.

"The easiest way for me to explain it, is, well, this," Badri said, dragging his hand through the image. It separated in two portions, neither of them entirely recognizable.

He gestured at the first one. It was more distinct than the second one, and Iscom could still make out the sergeant's face on the model. It was, for the most part, only his lower and left sides. There were bits and pieces that hung in the air that disturbed Iscom slightly, but it was still preferable to looking at the second image.

"This," Badri said, was it sadly? Iscom wasn't sure, "is a model of my cybernetics."

Which meant...

Iscom forced himself look at the second image. It actually wasn't as bad as his first glimpse had made it out to be. It was mostly the upper right portion, ending with a fairly clean cut starting about two thirds of the way across the sergeant's chest at the left shoulder and moving inward as it crossed his torso, ending halfway across his right leg. The head was what really had turned Iscom away. It was missing most of the skin, and a rather large portion of the back of its—his, really—skull, not to mention that the brain damage underneath was so bad that Iscom could see it, from relatively simple bruising to places where it seemed entire pieces had been destroyed completely. The right eye was the only thing still intact, mismatched with the empty left socket. Iscom couldn't shake the feeling that the eye was staring at him.

"This is what is left of my organic body," Badri said. Iscom could feel the real sergeant staring at him too. He struggled to find something to say.

All he managed to come up was with a lame, "You weren't kidding when you said you had a lot of cybernetics."

Badri laughed suddenly, a nervous, tension-snapping sort of laugh. "No, I wasn't."

Iscom looked back at the second image, trying to overlay the hologram with the real person sitting across from him. It was more difficult than he had guessed. "You said it was a crash?" Iscom asked.

"Yes," Badri said. Iscom didn't look away from the hologram. He wasn't quite ready to. "The team I was a part of, before this one, our ship was shot down on a mission. I... I'm the only one left."

At that, Iscom had to look up. The sergeant had shifted his gaze, however, looking at the same holo that Iscom was fixated on.

"I know it doesn't mean jack, but I'm sorry," Iscom said.

"It means a little," Badri said quietly, still not looking up. "It means enough that you haven't run away screaming yet."

It was Iscom's turn to laugh at the sudden snap of his nerves. He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol getting to him, or just the horror of the story. "To be honest, I can't say I've seen worse, because I haven't. Most people who take this much damage have the courtesy to bleed out and end their own misery before the doctors can get to them."

"It's kind of funny, actually," Badri said with a smile, "the ship that destroyed me also saved my life. When we crashed, a piece landed here," he said, tracing along the clean cut that marked the end of his body on the second holo, "but it stayed there. Several tons of burning metal falling from the sky, and one piece had the gall to cut me in half and then seal the damn wound shut."

There was a rather extended pause as Iscom tried to absorb this.

 _Kind of funny?...!_

Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be an audible sound when Iscom felt his nerves not only snap, but shatter into a dozen disorientated pieces. That was just the last straw today.

"So let me get this straight," he eventually started. "You survived being _literally_ cut in half only because—did you even survive?" He wasn't sure if he sounded as bewildered as he felt, but damn. What, just, _what the hell?_

"Not... exactly," the sergeant said, awkwardly looking at his own hands.

Iscom rubbed his forehead, trying to piece this together in his head. "So you died," he asked.

"That's a fair way to put it," Badri said evenly.

Iscom stared at him. "Fair?" he asked weakly. " _Fair?_ I don't have any words to—I don't think there even _are_ medical terms for what happened to you!"

Badri shrugged. Iscom choked. "I told you," said Badri, "I didn't choose it. It was one of those emergency-whatevers; no consent, informed or otherwise. No means to give consent, in my case," he added in defense of the doctors. "I wasn't fit to be conscious for two months after the initial crash."

Iscom downed the rest of his drink and rubbed his eyes. The hangover would be worth it tomorrow if it let him get through the rest of this conversation. "Bloody fucking hell," he whispered. On the verge of hysterical laugher, he asked, "How the hell do you live? I mean, how the hell are you alive, yeah, but _damn_. Emergency doctoral override..." he trailed off. _No_ means _to give consent. By the stars, his body was fucked to hell._

"I live because I saw the alternative," the sergeant said quietly. "And to be honest, it scared me."

"Of course it did," Iscom said, finding his drink empty as he brought it up to his mouth. He motioned for another. "I've seen it too. Alright, not _that_ close, but close enough for my liking. In the past five years I've seen damn more than I would have liked. The last six months in particular," he added darkly, wishing his next drink would come faster.

Badri murmured agreement, draining the last of his own glass. "Last six months I've been cooped up in rehab. Learning how to work all these damn things," he gestured a little wildly at his face. "Walking, now, walking's a bitch. I got speaking started early, but anytime I tried to think about it the whole rig just shut down. Couldn't make sense of anything. Damn near drove me mad before I figured out that I just had to stop thinking in wordsand it would all come back."

"What do you have in there?" Iscom asked. He was starting to feel the alcohol getting to his head, but at this point the conversation might make more sense if he was drunk, so no real loss. "It's not a translator chip."

"Speech processor," said the sergeant. "Left temporal lobe biocomputer. Prosthetic mod, not an augment."

"Is that new? I've heard of it somewhere before, I'm sure, but I can't remember where." Iscom explained.

"Prototype," Badri said. "I think mine was the first installed. In someone who lived. Mostly."

Iscom snorted. "Mostly. What the hell have I gotten myself into?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about this," Badri said, with a gesture first at the holo, and then at himself. "I have to go to a specialist every six months for... a 'check up' of sorts. Next one will be in, oh, about three months," he said. "All you have to do is keep me alive until then."

"Again, with the not getting yourself blown up?" Iscom suggested.

Badri laughed, "Fine, fine, I'll try not to do it again. But for now, we should probably call it a night."

Which seemed like a rather unsubtle way to suggest that Badri was done talking about himself, but that was fair. He did just face the rather grueling task of explaining... _this_. Iscom wasn't sure if he would have been able to explain something this extensive or personal to anyone without drinking himself into unconsciousness. "I'm going to check on Yuo once more. You coming?" Iscom asked his CO.

"Of course," Badri said. Iscom wasn't sure if the offence was real or just drunken sarcasm. "To the hospital, then?"

"On your lead," Iscom said as he stood up, gesturing Badri to the door. The sergeant stood up shakily, and Iscom rushed to his side. "Whoa there," he said. "You sure about the visit? You just got out yourself."

"I'm fine," Badri insisted, pushing Iscom away. "It's just the damn alcohol messing with the nerve connections. I'll be fine once I get my footing."

"If you say so," Iscom relented, following him out the cantina.


	4. Chapter 4

"I told you, I'm _fine_."

"And I told you, I don't care what you think. I'm not having you back out in the field until _I'm_ sure you're fine," Rigil insisted. "Now hold still." Yuo sighed, but stopped fidgeting.

"How's the commander?" Yuo asked tentatively. While Iscom couldn't see her face, he could hear the concern in her voice.

"Fine," he said tersely. Then, less abrasively, he added, "His injuries weren't as bad as yours, really. He knows how to position himself to take the least damage," _by charging in cybernetics-first_ , Iscom added silently. "It comes with more combat experience," he said aloud, "which you and Brash haven't had as much of yet. Not that I ever recommend charging into a fire-bomb."

"Yeah, I think I'll be avoiding those in the future," Yuo agreed. She flinched as Iscom tested one of the bruises running across her back. "Do you really have to do this?" she asked again.

Iscom felt his temperature rise suddenly, flashbacks of screams echoing in his ears. He forced a sigh, if only to keep Yuo from noticing. "Private," he said seriously, "I'm not letting you back on field missions until I am sure you are healed—or, at least, well on the way to healing properly. If you just jump out there half-assed, still wounded, that's going to make life harder for me, which will in turn jeopardize the safety of Brash and Emras."

"I—But the commander—" Yuo started. Iscom could read her guilt, and interrupted.

"It's not your fault," he said, "and trust me, you would have been injured a lot worse if it hadn't been for Emras's timing. In the heat of battle, every second counts, and sometimes things go wrong. You just have to improvise, figure out what happens next, and make it happen the way you want it to. That's something that takes time to learn, and it's not something you can learn in a classroom. But you and Brash are quick studies. I have no doubt that you can handle yourself in an emergency. I'd just like to keep that from happening, if at all possible."

"I understand," Yuo said sullenly. _For all her stubbornness,_ Iscom thought, _she's still just a kid. Barely out of the academy. Why they put her on a team with someone like Badri... and someone like me. I don't understand the set-up of this team at all!_

"You're good to go," Iscom said, smiling, still pondering the team formation. It really made no sense, now that he was thinking about it. A new CO, but an old soldier. An old medic, orphaned from the collapse of his team. Two fresh recruits who had never seen field action. Where was the sense? It was almost as if they were missing something, or someone. Like the team had a hole where another member should have been.

"Oh good," said Yuo, standing back up. "You had me worried for a minute there!"

"The medics on Coruscant seem to know how to do their jobs," Iscom said absentmindedly. There was something to that idea. Maybe that was why they were stuck here on Coruscant, doing oddball cleanup jobs and quick hit-and-run missions. Maybe they were missing a team member, and the higher-ups were trying to fill the void. It was something to consider, at least.

* * *

 _Three months later_

* * *

Iscom's holocom was ringing. It was still ringing. It probably wasn't going to stop ringing until he picked it up, as much as he might hope otherwise. It was much too soon to be awake. It was... early, that was the word. He stood up unsteadily, walking over to where he had left his com last night, and switched it on.

"Brash?" Iscom said, bleary-eyed, and probably bleary-voiced, although that may just have been his hearing playing tricks on his ears. "Why the hell are you calling me at—" he leaned over to check the chrono, "oh-three-bloody-hundred?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Brash said meekly, "but you were the only person I could think of."

"Call the Sergeant," Iscom dismissed. "I thought calls-too-damn-early were supposed to be part of the CO's job."

"That's just it, sir," said Brash. The 'sirs' were beginning to ring an alarm for Iscom. Brash, while a good guy, was the type for whom 'sir' came out naturally in the same tone that most people reserved for a good I-told-you-so. He continued, "It's the sergeant that I'm worried about. He's been down in the cantina for hours, since twenty-two-hundred, and he, um, he's been drinking the whole time. He's in a bad state, and I couldn't get him out. I was hoping that you would have better luck," he admitted. His failure had obviously irked him, but Brash must think that Badri was in some sort of trouble if he was willing to admit his failure and wake Iscom up at this god-awful hour. "He doesn't exactly sound drunk, but it's like every sentence is completely coherent and utter gibberish. He keeps talking to himself, or to someone who isn't there. Keeps mentioning being unconscious, and... a lot of death."

Iscom had already stopped listening. _Doesn't sound drunk._ Did his cybernetics interfere with how the alcohol affected his brain? Well, obviously they did _somewhat_ , seeing as his brain was part cybernetic itself, but it might be that the cybernetics kept him from getting drunk in the first place. "I'm sure Emras can handle his drink," Iscom reassured him, leaning to turn the com off.

"Wait, and he mentioned it being a year since something," Brash added quickly.

Iscom froze, his finger hovering above the button. He felt his stomach drop in realization. _"Eight or nine months."_

"You know what it is?" Brash asked.

"Private," Iscom started seriously, "how long has this team been together?"

"About three months," Brash replied, confused. "So that's not what he's talking about."

The private was continuing to speak, but Iscom had it figured out. Three months. Nine months. That made a year, oh damn, one year since…

He swore violently enough that Brash widened his eyes. "You know what's going on?" he asked.

"Keep him down there until I get there," Iscom commanded, ignoring his question. "Don't let him leave. Try to keep him off the drinks, but don't let him out of your sight, whatever you do."

"Alright, sir," Brash said curiously, but didn't protest or question the order. Iscom clicked the com off and pulled the first shirt out of the drawer.

 _Shit. One year. Who knows what he'll try to do?_ he cursed, putting the pieces together. Badri was a lot of things, but _stable_ was not one of the words that Iscom would use to describe him. And anniversaries... anniversaries were tricky. They had a way of making people do really unbelievably _stupid_ things.

Hopefully, trying to drink himself to death was the worst idea that Badri had tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Suicide mention in this chapter.

* * *

"He's still over there," Brash gestured to the sergeant. "Couldn't get him to stop," he apologized, "but at least he's still here, and I got the bartender to stop bringing him more."

"Thanks," Iscom said, distracted by sheer amount of glasses in front of the sergeant. Over a dozen. He was surprised that the bar had still been serving him drinks until Brash intervened. Then again, Iscom reminded himself, Badri may not be drunk at all. Or maybe only slightly drunk, he amended. He doubted any in-body system could take on that much alcohol and win. Brash waited at the table by the door while Iscom headed over to Emras's table, taking the seat across from the sergeant. Badri didn't seem to notice him until he was seated and staring right at him.

"Lita?" he muttered, looking up. "The hell are you doing here?"

 _Alright, so_ very _drunk._

"I'm not Lita," Iscom insisted, not knowing who that was. "It's Iscom Rigil."

Badri squinted. "Iscom? But you're not dead," he scoffed, confusion in his voice.

"I should hope not," Iscom replied, indignant.

"They're all dead, you know," he said, sounding as matter-of-fact as he did on a mission briefing. "Lita's dead too. Me too."

"If you were dead, you wouldn't be talking to me right now," Iscom noted.

"I didn't say I was dead _now_ ," Badri insisted, "Just dead before. And dead again later. In a month. I don't see them when I die, though. Just black, black for a while, kinda gray, actually," he mused. "A very dark gray. That part doesn't hurt. The white hurts, and the waking up. And the living."

Brash was spot-on. He was completely coherent in his speech, the exact same slightly halting speech pattern that Iscom had come to recognize as a product of his biocomputers. Iscom could understand every word he said. It was when he tried to put the words in context around each other that Iscom was lost. Even knowing what he knew—and Brash didn't—about the sergeant's cybernetics and history, Iscom could still only make sense of one sentence in three. That certainly didn't stop Badri from talking, though.

"You remind me of Emras," he said. "And remind me of me."

"I do?" Iscom asked, _and what Emras?_ he wondered, but Badri ignored him.

"I don't," he continued. "I'm not me, you're more me. Don't know who I am. What I am now. How many machines does it take to make a man?" he hummed, and gave a bark of laughter. "Forty-five percent."

 _His cybernetics,_ Iscom realized. _I was right: he's talking about his cybernetics. And someone else, someone he knew before. Whoever he changed his name after. Someone else in the crash? Probably. A member of the last team he was on, before…_

"Forty-five goddamn percent," Badri repeated bitterly. "You know what that means?" and continued without waiting for an answer, "Means I can be drunk out of my fucking mind and still sound sober," he spat.

 _At least he realizes that he's drunk,_ Iscom thought sarcastically.

"How much would it take before I even began to sound drunk?" the sergeant asked.

"You sound pretty drunk to me," Iscom remarked.

"You don't count; I always sound drunk to you," Badri dismissed. Which didn't entirely make sense to Iscom. Which, admittedly, kind of proved the sergeant's point.

"Why is it always me?" Badri asked, depression suddenly taking over his tone. He sounded wearier than Iscom had ever heard him. "It should've been someone else. Anyone else. It should have been Taroth," he persisted. "He had people waiting for him. Jamae, and his sister. His mom, somewhere. If I had stayed dead, I could have seen them again."

 _Seen who? The rest of the team?_ "We have a new team now," Iscom said. "You and me, and Brash and Yuo."

"Better to be dead," Badri muttered, ignoring Iscom again. "Hurts a hell of a lot less. It won't stop, the ticking, the damn ticking, over and over… Too fucking precise, too fucking empty in my own goddamn head. Dammit!" he shouted, clutching his head between his hands, pressing on his temples. "Shut up! Just stop, dammit!"

"Badri, snap out of it!" Iscom insisted as the sergeant buried his head in his arms on the table. He looked back up suddenly, and shouted something.

Something very strange, and incoherent, and certainly not in any language Iscom had heard of.

 _What the hell?_ Iscom thought, alarmed. Badri seemed unaware that he was no longer speaking in Basic. Or speaking in anything. As Iscom tried to process it, he noticed that the blue lights on the sergeant's temples now shone yellow. The angry gibberish continued for another sentence or so, as far as Iscom could judge.

"What the hell?" Iscom said aloud, echoing his own thoughts. The lights returned to blue.

Badri glared at him. "Go away," he snarled. Then his look suddenly changed, crushing depression settling over the wild rage on his face. "Oh, stars," he breathed shakily. "Just let me die. Please," he pleaded desperately.

"Not a chance," Iscom said firmly. He didn't have a chance to say anything else before the sergeant fell face-first onto the table, passing out. Iscom stared at his CO, watching the steady blue lights on each side of his head.

"Is he alright?" asked a voice from behind him. Brash.

"Just passed out," Iscom said, not looking back. "Think you could help me carry him back to his place?"

"Yeah, sure," Brash said, coming around to take the sergeant's arms.

* * *

Badri's apartment was one of the cheap one-room affairs for which "bachelor pad" would be too generous a name. Opening the door with the keycard fished out of the sergeant's pocket, however, revealed a room that looked more like a medical clinic than a home. Jars of pills, empty syringes, and a bag of fluid lay on the table, an upright IV rig was pushed haphazardly into a corner, and, more relevant to Iscom, a dialysis machine was set up on a table next to the bed.

 _That fucking idiot!_ Iscom thought, trying hard to keep his cool in front of the private. He needed to get Brash out of here. Oh _shit,_ he needed to get Badri in dialysis. _If he already has a problem with his kidneys that's so damn bad that he has to have a bloody dialysis setup in his bloody_ home _, he shouldn't be drinking until he fucking blacks out!_

"What is all of this?" Brash asked in horrified curiosity.

"Medical equipment," Iscom said vaguely, still mentally cursing Badri. Counting on Brash's uncomfortable—and purposeful, if Iscom was any judge—ignorance of the sergeant's cybernetics, he added, "He's a cyborg, remember?"

"Right," Brash said awkwardly. _Bingo_. The private accepted the not-explanation with no further questions, and helped Iscom get the sergeant on the bed.

"Y'think we should do… something else?" Brash asked.

"Nah," said Iscom casually, while the mental swearing picked up steam. "Just leave him. It'll be his own damn fault when he wakes up with a hangover."

Brash snorted. "That's for sure."

"I'm gonna wait for him to wake up," Iscom said, pointing at the unconscious sergeant. He collapsed into a chair as casually as he could manage. "You can go on home. See you tomorrow."

"You mean today," Brash pointed out, an exhausted smile playing on his mouth.

"Whatever," Iscom said, waving lazily. Brash walked slowly, very slowly, agonizingly slowly. As soon as Iscom heard the doors close, he shot up and out of his seat.

He headed straight for the machine on the nightstand, reaching around for the cord in the back. It was unplugged, something that was easily fixed. The machine hissed angrily to life when he found the wall socket. Iscom felt it rather accurately depicted his feelings. He pulled Badri further over on the right side of the bed: more proof that the sergeant used the machine with some regularity. Not only was it set up next to his bed, ready for use except for the power cord, but it was set up on the only side he could use it on. There was no blood to filter in the left side of his body.

Realizing the tight sleeves wouldn't roll up easily, Iscom pulled the sergeant's shirt off over his head. Underneath the shirt, his body was a patchwork. Beyond the obvious seam-scar, the fainter natural scars that Iscom had seen in the hospital, and a few additional scars that crossed his back, a web of scars too thin to be noticed casually covered all his skin to the right side of the seam. In contrast, the left side was perfectly smooth— _synthskin_ , Iscom added. _Everything to the left of that seam is artificial._ The network of faint scars extended down his right arm, including a pair of short, parallel marks that had to have been left from the dialysis often does he use this thing?

Iscom made the attachments, carefully slipping the tubes into his arm, and turned the machine on. He pulled up a chair from the table, sitting back, fully intending to check the readouts, although he figured it would probably have to run for a while to clear out the alcohol in his system.

He fell asleep before the numbers came up.


	6. Chapter 6

Iscom woke with the unpleasant feeling that he was being stared at.

Looking across the room, he realized that he was being stared at. By a holo, but still. That counted, right?

He walked over to the table to take a closer look. It seemed to be the only area of the room where Badri had left any sign of a person living here. The holo shone brightly, projecting a still image of a group of people, posing for a photo. _A wedding photo,_ Iscom noticed, taking in the formal wear of them all, and the glittering dress of the woman in the middle. She smiled brightly, holding on to the arm of her assumed husband. _Badri?_ Iscom wondered, but quickly dismissed the idea. The groom's skin was darker by far than Badri's, and he was obviously one of the shortest in the holo, a claim that the tall Badri could only make in the presence of a group of absurdly large people. The bride was obviously related to Badri, however. She had the same dark hair as the sergeant, pinned elegantly to match the style of her dress. Behind her stood two nearly identical men—no, actually identical. They were twins. One was clearly the father of the bride, but he couldn't tell which. They each stood holding the arm of their wife, both of whom were crying. No clear mother of the bride, then. That left…

It took a second look at the sleeping sergeant to convince Iscom that the smiling man on the bride's side of the holo was Badri. The resemblance was clear, but it was as familial as the rest of his relatives. He was so much younger than the sergeant Iscom knew; he couldn't be older than fifteen, sixteen at the most. And obviously, Iscom allowed himself to admit, he had no cybernetics. And he was _happy_ , really and truly. It changed his face nearly beyond recognition.

 _No_ , Iscom realized, taking a third look back at Badri. _It's more than that._ He tried to overly the two faces in his mind's eye, tracing the features of both men. There was something different. It was so subtle, maybe it was just the small scale of the holo, but the younger Badri's jawline was a different shape entirely, his profile narrower. His eyes were lighter in spirit, but darker in color—for one thing, they clearly had a color, even if the blue-tinted holo didn't show it. _Brown, probably,_ guessed Iscom. Not the strange, light gray that wasn't a natural human color, not one that Iscom had ever seen, anyway. _Not cybernetic, either, he added, and not blind._

The rest of the small table was filled with carefully laid out medals and a second holo, turned off. Iscom picked it up and was looking for the on switch when there was a noise from behind him.

Badri groaned, pulling himself upright. Iscom set the holo back on the table where it had been, crossing his arms in annoyance and turning to face his CO.

"You're a fucking fool, Emras, you know that?"

Badri squinted up at him, no recognition in his look. He fell backwards on the bed, head colliding with pillows once again. He fiddled with the lights on his temples—no, he was messing with the band. Taking it off, or at least sliding it down to reveal a small touchpad implanted in his head under the band, directly behind the light on his right temple. Badri slid his finger across it twice before sliding the band back up to cover it.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Afraid I didn't catch that. Too much… chiming? No, ringing," he corrected, "too much ringing to understand you. Interference. In my head," he added, as if it wasn't clear.

"I said, you're a fucking fool," Iscom repeated. "What _idiot_ with kidney problems drinks himself into unconsciousness? I'd ask if you were trying to get yourself killed, but I'd say the answer to that is a pretty definite yes!"

Badri looked over at his arm. "How long did you have this running?" he asked.

"About five hours," Iscom answered, looking at the chrono.

"Shit," Badri swore, pulling out the tubes.

"Whoa!" Iscom said. "You really should wait until it has your system cleared! That thing'll beep when you're supposed to take it out."

"And why do you think it hasn't?" Badri challenged. "Do you really think that I drank enough to merit it running for five whole hours without managing to clear my system?"

Iscom blinked. "I…" _No,_ he thought. _One hour, tops. There's no way a dialysis machine that serious would take so long to clear something as simple as an alcohol overdose from his system._

"Check the readings," Badri said, waving at the machine. Iscom did.

His first reaction was that the machine had to be malfunctioning. Iscom stared at the screen, but the numbers didn't change drastically. Neither did the categories. Alcohol, yes. That was not a surprise. Normal things. But how and why did Badri have traces of electrum, polyplast compounds, and _flexisteel_ , of all things, in his blood? For that matter, why did he have class-six anti-polymer fragments in his system? Those chemicals were deadly in small dosages over any length of time; they attacked both biological and metallic compounds aggressively.

Badri was checking the readings as well. "Now could you please grab one of each of the half-doses from that case?" Badri asked, pointing at a compact black case about half a meter long up against the wall. "Should be three of them. The half-dose measures are the smaller ones."

Iscom went over to grab them. _This is where the syringes came from,_ he thought when he opened the case. There were fifteen more organized in three rows, and room for the three that were sitting on the nightstand. Behind each row sat a medicine bottle, each about one-quarter full of liquid. The chemical formulas on the instruction sheets pinned behind one were instantly familiar.

"Badri?" Iscom asked warningly. "Why the hell are you injecting yourself with a class-six anti-polymer?"

Badri had the good grace to look sheepish. "Doctors orders?" he suggested. Iscom glared. "It's because so much of my vascular system is artificial," the sergeant explained. "It… erodes, somewhat. The artificial veins, I mean. Well, the organic ones too, but that's supposed to happen," he rambled. "If I leave it for too long, I start to get microclots from the residue. The anti-polymer breaks apart the fragments that tend to stick together and clot."

"And the other two?" Iscom asked.

"One is a neutralizer for the anti-polymer," Badri said, "the other is a blood clotting agent. The anti-polymer, um, causes some damage to the organic parts of my vascular system as well," he admitted, "but since my heart is artificial anyway, counter-drugs it is."

Iscom shook his head. "This is ridiculous," he said. "How often?"

"Every four days. The microclots build up fast. Basically, my body is fucked up," Badri laughed.

"You can say that again," agreed Iscom, filling a set of smaller syringes and handing them to Badri.

"Thanks," the sergeant said, sitting upright and taking them. He set the last two on the table, leaving the anti-polymer in his hands. "This one first," he explained. "I have to wait twenty minutes before using the neutralizer."

"I'd imagine that would be incredibly painful," Iscom remarked, remembering some of the second-year lectures on chemical weapons, one of which had included something with a remarkably similar formula to the one plastered to the back of Badri's case.

"That would be pretty accurate," Badri said lightly. "If you have anything else you want to berate me for, go ahead. Otherwise, you have the rest of the day off. Tell Brash and Yuo, please."

"Kicking me out already?" Iscom joked.

"Well, you've been here for five hours without my permission," Badri pointed out, "and I'm going to be very boring for the next half-hour, unless you enjoy watching people curled up in a ball of pain."

"Not my favorite pastime, no," Iscom said, raising an eyebrow. _That bad, huh?_ and, _He does this every four days?_

"Then yes, I am kicking you out," Badri nodded, and waved his hand in the direction of the door. "Scram!"

Iscom almost laughed. "You sure you don't need any help?" he asked seriously.

"Every four days," Badri repeated. "You didn't notice before now, you won't notice later. Half an hour and I'm fine."

"If you say so," Iscom surrendered, putting his hands up. "Oh, and one more thing. Brash was here too," he confessed. "He helped me bring you back here. I didn't explain any of this," he gestured at the dialysis machine and the IV, which still hadn't been explained to Iscom himself, for that matter, "and I don't think he really wants to know. I got him to leave before I hooked you up, but if he asks you any questions, that's why."

Badri absorbed this information slowly. Iscom felt as if he was trailing a word or two behind real-time in his comprehension, which, given the combination of biocomputers and massive hangovers, seemed like a realistic estimate. He finally said, "Thank you."

"Anytime," Iscom said automatically, and then he caught up to what he had said. "Wait. No, not anytime. Don't do this to me again," he ordered.

Badri only smiled. "I don't make promises that I can't keep," he said. Some of the unfathomable weariness and utter depression from last night crept through to the pain in his eyes.

"Close enough," Iscom relented, startled by the look. Something in the sergeant's eyes threatened to haunt him at night, nightmares of ships crashed and friends killed.


	7. Chapter 7

Updates may be slightly sporadic for the next couple weeks as I prepare to move across the country, but they should stabilize again once I'm settled in.

Also, after this chapter is about where you should stop reading if you want to pretend it has a happy ending. It doesn't. But if you want, you can pretend that it does.

* * *

Sometimes, Iscom really hated when he was right.

He woke up with the sudden desperation that comes at the end of a nightmare, but physically, only his eyelids moved. There was none of the spontaneous ricocheting off his pillow like a springboard that seemed to be such a staple in dramas. Instead, he lay silently, perfectly still, trying to recapture the horror he had just escaped so he at least knew what he was so terrified _by_.

Parts of the dream came back in an instant, those were his memories. The marshy Alderaanian coastland, the clear blue water, the reeds that grew right up into the water. Lindy's screaming, the Captain's horrified commands, the shot to his own arm. Padan's burned face—or what had been left of Fosa. Those things had happened. Less than a year had passed, but it seemed like so much longer…

The parts that were his subconscious's creation were harder to piece together. He remembered thinking that they were in a ship, somehow: it made no sense now, but at the time it seemed perfectly clear. That they were crashing over the coast, that was how the dream had started. The five of them in the ship… had there been six?

They hit the ground, somehow ending up in the exact same formation that they had been when the Imps attacked. Things had played out as his memory had instructed, until the fire-bomb went off. It took Padan and Fosa… and Emras. Badri. Why had he been there? His subconscious thought it would be hilarious to mix his teams, current and former?

Lindy had screamed as Padan fell on top of him, and Iscom had started to make his way over when he was shot. He felt the pain shoot through his arm, knowing that it was pointless to worry about it now while lives were at stake. The Captain shouted him over to Lindy, then shouted a query. Iscom responded positively, and the Captain went to meet her fate at the hands of the Imps. Not killed, not yet. But somewhere in the back of his mind, Iscom always wondered how long they would keep her on life support before they gave up. Even in his dream, he wondered.

He had made it to Lindy and Padan, clutching his arm all the way. Padan was, miraculously, still alive. The mess the fire-bomb had made of his body could be repaired, if they made it to help. Iscom did the best he could. Lindy held Padan steady, looking guilty for screaming earlier, before Iscom nodded him off to help the Captain. He would never know how many the Captain took down before Lindy arrived, or how many Lindy took after she fell, but the total added up to the number in the surprise attack.

Iscom turned around, intending to help, but his memory played yet another trick. The dream had replaced Fosa with Badri, exchanging one ruined body for another. Instead of the charred corpse, there was barely half a corpse. Burns covered his left side, but they were minimal in comparison. He was bleeding steadily from the entire side, or lack thereof. His face, however, was burned away completely, just like Fosa's. With one small difference: the blinded, gray right eye, staring up at him, bleeding into a pool of blood that had once been a face…

That had been when Iscom had woken up. And he was damn glad of that. Who knew what his subconscious would have seen fit to add next? Would Yuo wind up covered in injures, comatose? Would Brash have been the one to carry her limp, bloody, body back to Iscom, pleading for him to do something, trailing a mix of his blood and hers where he walked?

Or would it have been an entirely different scene? Back in the ship once more, all of them killed, and Iscom left wandering, broken? Or would he have died as well? Hopefully neither. He had enough nightmares of his own, but he didn't envy what nightly tortures Badri faced. Did he even have dreams? He must have; the biocomputers were almost exclusively for parts of his mind usually conscious. He might not understand the speech in the dreams, or see them, for that matter. That was a question best left for Badri himself to answer, if Iscom ever found a time to bring it up.

Iscom finally moved his head enough to check the chrono. He had three hours until he had to wake up. That was time enough to try for sleep again. It's not like his dreams traumatized him more than the memories they came from, and they weren't going away any time soon. Might as well get some rest while he could.

"Come in."

The sergeant sounded weary. Iscom couldn't blame him, not now that he knew what Badri went through on a near daily basis. He also had a vague suspicion that the sergeant was expecting him. The door slid open, and Iscom walked in.

Badri looked remarkably normal. Despite the exhaustion—or was it exasperation?—in his voice, he stood at alert. Yuo and Brash were in the room as well, presumably checking in on Badri. Brash had been worried as well, and he had probably told Yuo what had happened.

"So as you can see, I'm fine," Badri finished, addressing the two junior members of the team. "We all have leave today, so enjoy it while it lasts. Tomorrow we're back at work." With that, they were dismissed.

Badri sighed, tugging at the desk chair. He fell into the chair, and Iscom realized that he was seeing behind a mask. Badri was putting on an act for Brash and Yuo, and probably had been ever since the team had met. Hell, he had probably been acting in front of Iscom too, if last night was any indication.

"You alright?" Iscom asked.

"Is that all I'm going to get from you now?" Badri asked, annoyed. "I'm fine. I've been doing this shit for a year now."

Iscom pulled the second chair out from under the desk and took a seat. "Sorry, I'm still getting used to the idea. Of all the things I thought I might find out about you, the fact that you're constantly poisoned was not on the list." He sighed. "It feels like it's been more than three months, you know?"

"You know how sometimes it feels like time has gone by so fast that it's taken forever?" Badri asked him.

"Yeah?" Iscom replied.

"The past year has kind of been like that," Badri sighed, leaning back in his chair. "It's hard to believe that a year ago, I was in a coma bordering on death. In the past year, I've lost everything, and don't take this the wrong way, but there is nothing I could gain that could make up for that. No matter how many people I meet, no matter how many new relationships I create, new teams I join, I can never have a normal life. I'm lucky to be alive at all," he laughed, but it was humorless. "But I guess I have to make my peace with that. That I'm no longer human," he admitted. The words sounded like a final admission, something Badri had been fighting against for ages, until he had finally given in.

Iscom leaned back in his chair to look at the ceiling. "Do you dream?" he asked suddenly.

"Where did that come from?" Badri laughed.

"A dream I had a few nights back," Iscom replied casually. "You were in it, and I wondered if your subconscious liked to torture you as much as mine likes to torture me. Which lead to the obvious question: Do you actually dream?"

"Yes," Badri answered, "and yes. I don't know what your nightmares are, but I would safely bet any number of credits you cared to name that mine are worse."

"I don't doubt that," Iscom agreed. "At least my worst is seeing other people die. I generally wake up before we get to my own death."

Badri gave a wry smile. "It is rather hard to describe."

"You tried to, when you were drunk," Iscom reminded him. "It didn't make any sense whatsoever."

"I vaguely remember that," Badri said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I think I was long past making sense by the time you got there. Did I ever apologize to Brash for going off on him?"

"No, and he didn't mention it when he called me," Iscom said.

"I won't bring it up, then," Badri decided.

"Also, what was with the colors?" Iscom asked. Badri gave him a curious look, and he clarified, "The lights on your temples. They went yellow while you were… incoherent."

"Oh," Badri said, unconsciously reaching up to cover one temple. "They're indicator lights. Because my body is such a mess, most things that could go wrong have a high probability of leaving me unable to speak. This way there's at least a bit of information before the doctors start cutting me open. Blue means everything's normal, yellow means there's a possible problem with one of my biocomputers. White means a biocomputer has shut off completely, and red means there's something fatally wrong with my heart pump or my power source."

The room quieted, both men lost in their own thoughts. It was yet another reminder of what Iscom could never fully understand—Badri's body was beyond repair.

"It was exactly a year," Badri whispered. "The first anniversary of when we were shot down."

"I know," Iscom said. It had been easy enough to figure out.

"Do you?" Badri asked. His voice was still quiet, but something in his voice seemed to cut. The grief that echoed did not seem to accuse Iscom, but rather chastise. Iscom suddenly felt younger, out of his depth.

"Everyone died," Badri said. "Everyone died, except for me. And Carthers, but he… There's no one left. Everything I knew is just… gone."

There was nothing for Iscom to say. Not to that.

"…Sorry," Badri muttered. He sounded near tears, but his eyes were dry. "I'm fine, I just… Would you mind giving me some time alone? You have the day off as well, you know."

Iscom tried to meet his gaze, but Badri avoided him. "Sure," he said, trying to be as supportive as possible. Sometimes, you just needed to be alone. Iscom understood that, but it didn't make it sting any less.

He still worried about the sergeant. Not because of anything physical, but because of the pain that shone behind his blind eye.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: The next few chapters go downhill, uh, quite quickly and somewhat without warning. Consider this your warning. It all will end in Major Character Death.

* * *

It started a week later.

The first reports were hushed over, but it didn't take long for whispers and rumors to spread. _A Cyborg officer_ , they said. _He killed his own teammates. They had to send another team in to take him down._

Iscom barely thought twice about it.

* * *

Two weeks.

Three incidents, all of a similar nature. The patterns were so damn obvious that even the psycho newscasters were getting it right. Cyborgs, officers, no prior records. Seemingly unprovoked attacks on friends, family, teammates, fighting until their own death.

And subtler patterns, one that the news hadn't picked up on, one that Iscom didn't quite have the information to back up. But he knew someone who knew that one had a cerebral biocomputer, and who knew someone else who claimed that another had extensive spinal cord replacements.

Both of which were modifications that Badri had.

Iscom's eyes glazed over the news report. The rumors had become common knowledge over the last week, and some idiots had torched yet another cybernetics factory. They claimed to be starting a movement, some sort of anti-cyborg thing for justice, and liberty, and whatever. It put Iscom off. Those officers… if they were anything like his own CO, they needed help, and badly. Of course, there was a slim possibility that they weren't connected, but really, that was about as likely as Brash wearing a dress. Or Yuo wearing a dress, for that matter.

But there was one person he could ask.

* * *

Iscom didn't bother to knock. The sergeant knew he was coming, and he knew it was official.

"Corporal, I wish I could say this was a surprise," Badri said as Iscom walked in, "but I have a feeling I know what this is about."

Iscom stood to attention just inside the room. "I think you do, sir, and I hope you know I don't mean any offence by it," he added. He wanted this to be as impersonal as possible, completely formal and desensitized, because he wasn't sure that Badri could handle it any other way.

Badri, of course, had other ideas. "Come in and sit down," he said, pulling the chair out from behind his desk so they would sit facing each other. "Let's make this informal. I don't want to have to report it," he explained. Iscom suppressed his eyeroll. He doubted that Badri actually reported anything, seeing the speed at which his datawork got done.

"Sir?" Iscom asked, making the question behind his eyes as clear as possible. _I'm gonna be blunt as hell. Can you handle that?_

"No sir, just Badri," he said firmly. _Well then,_ Iscom thought. "Pretend we're in a cantina," Badri added. "I'm sorry I don't actually have a drink to pull out here," he said longingly. "It would probably make this easier."

Rigil finally sat down, but Badri got to the questions first. "This is about the incidents, right?" the sergeant asked.

"Three in the past two weeks, Badri," Iscom said seriously. "All officers. All cyborgs," he said quickly. It was almost a relief to have the words out in the open, like pointing out the elephant in the room. Only this elephant was made of metal and had killed eleven people now.

"And all of them tried to turn on their own men," Iscom added pointedly, as the man in front of his cyborg officer at this very moment.

Badri sighed, rubbing his temples in that very self-conscious gesture of his. He seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled his hands down abruptly. "I wish I had some sort of answer for you—for me," he added ruefully. "I could say it was some secret underground movement or something," he suggested, the unsaid, _That I could tell you I'm not a part of,_ ringing loud and clear for Iscom. Badri continued, "But we have nothing at all."

 _We, so he's already been contacted,_ Iscom noted. _By command? It would be likely. They have access to all the medical files for those… the officers. And Badri's files. So there is a correlation between the cybernetics—the type of cybernetics? Installer?—and the incidents._

"All I can tell you is that I would never willingly turn on you," Badri said. "You don't have to believe me, and if I were you I would take everything I said with a grain of salt, but if it came down to my team or the Republic, I would choose my team every time."

Iscom stared at him, trying to glean whatever he wasn't saying from his look. _He's being overly self-conscious. He can't really think that_ I _would ever think he could turn on us. Er, maybe he can. If someone has already interrogated him about this, it could have set his self-hatred back quite a bit. And here I was just starting to see some progress from the CO scared out of his wits at the thought of being responsible for the lives of his team…_

"So you're saying you know nothing about this," Iscom asked, giving him an easy way to talk about anyone who had come to see him on the matter, "nothing at all?"

"I only know as much as you do, Iscom," Badri reassured him. Reassured himself? Maybe he hadn't been contacted. "Despite what some may believe, I don't know every cyborg in the military any more than you know every Mirialan, and I didn't know any of the three in question. I do know that they all died—at the hands of their teams or families, no less," he added, putting as much emotional weight on _team_ as _family_. "And I know none of them had any behavioral problems or any indication that they would turn like this."

Which was all information that Iscom already knew. And was quite a speech in of itself. _Sounds like he had it prepared,_ Iscom thought. _Then again, I would have expected me to come ask this at some point if I were him. Predicting each other like it's normal, I guess we're a real team. Who would have thought?_ he added sarcastically.

"In all fairness and honesty," Badri said with a twisted smile, "I meet those criteria as well."

 _Oh damn,_ Iscom thought hurriedly. _Oh damn, he's really got this messed up in his head now._ "Sir—Badri," he corrected himself, the syllable slipping off his tongue out of habit, "I'm not saying that—"

Badri cut him off. "Well, you should be, because there's no way to know. If they turned for some unknown reason, there's nothing that says I won't have the same reason and turn on you. I can't imagine what it might be, other than something against their will, but not every cyborg thinks the same way."

Iscom tried again. "Badri, I trust you," he reiterated, getting annoyed with his CO's constant self-doubt—and assumptions that Iscom shared those same doubts, _which he didn't, dammit._ "I know that you wouldn't turn on us under your own free will, I just—"

"Had doubts?" Badri interrupted again. Iscom took a deep breath, mentally swearing. _No, goddammit, I just wanted to know if command had fucking contacted you yet!_ "I understand completely," _No, you fucking don't,_ Iscom swore, "and I'm not blaming you, Iscom," _and I'm not blaming you, dammit. Get that through your thick metal skull._ "I would be suspicious if I were you." _Of course you would,_ Iscom's inner commentary continued, _you're suspicious of you and you_ are _you, I can't imagine what you would think if you were me_. "But I'm not you, I'm me," _no shit,_ "and that means I have to deal with the fallbacks of being a cyborg sometimes."

Iscom's inner commentary shut up abruptly. Right. Dammit, _that's_ what this was all about. Because the fact was, Iscom wasn't sure if he could handle what the sergeant had been through. Waking up to find your body changed beyond recognition, everyone else dead, and being told to go on with life? It was probably a miracle that Badri had gotten this far. And now he was forced to question his own body, as the same choices he never made destroyed lives in a very public way around him.

"I'm lucky to have been assigned a team that doesn't judge me for it," Badri said lightly, glossing over the fact that half the team didn't know _it_ , "but that opinion seems to be the minority in the Republic."

Iscom sighed, "Ah, prejudice." He forwent the swearing, and instead tried to lead the sergeant to a different topic altogether. "Something I get the feeling we both know a lot about. For a faction that claims to be diverse and welcoming, there certainly are a lot of bigoted idiots in the Republic."

"I, thankfully, have not had enough time to run into too many," Badri said.

Iscom gave a harsh laugh, remembering the childhood bigots and bullies that had haunted him through adolescence. "Sometimes I think I'm almost jealous of you," he joked, "not having to deal with the preconceived ideas of idiots all your life."

Badri's expression darkened suddenly. _Oh shit. That might have been the wrong thing to say._ "You shouldn't be jealous of me," he said seriously. Then, as if he had noticed his own change, his face lightened abruptly, and he gave a jovial—and very, very fake—laugh. "You certainly wouldn't want my problems!" he said. Iscom fixed him with a steady, questioning stare.

 _Uh-huh. Don't think I'm buying that one._

The sergeant tried to ignore the look Iscom gave him, but didn't completely succeed. "Look," he relented, "I'll tell you if I have any… issues," he said vaguely. "If anything goes wrong, I will let the team know. I don't plan on leaving you in the dark about something as important as this."

"Alright," Iscom said, still not convinced that he was holding together after that last little show. He would have to tread carefully around the subject of cybernetics for the next few days. "I trust you," he reiterated for the thousandth time, not that he thought it would make any difference in the state Badri was in right now. "Don't make me a fool for that," he added jokingly, making absolutely sure that Badri knew he was joking.

"I won't," the sergeant reassured him. Iscom sighed, standing up. He gave the sergeant a half-hearted salute as he tried to figure out what his next move should be.


	9. Chapter 9

It turned out to be the sergeant who made the next move.

Iscom was already waiting, Yuo and Brash steaming over some argument or another behind him. The junior members of the team had volatile tempers, and they seemed to be hooked to the same fuse. When one went off, the other was sure to follow. Iscom had given up on trying to defuse them. The best he could do was to wait for the tardy sergeant to show.

"Well, I'm glad to see you all got the message."

Badri's laughter came from the door. _Finally_ , Iscom thought, suppressing the eyeroll he longed for.

"It's a fairly simple find and rescue mission," Badri continued, opening his locker. He lifted his rifle out, checking it for ammo and charge. "A seven-year-old girl was kidnapped a few nights ago, and Coruscant Security believes they've located the location she was taken to. Our job is to check out the place, and if she's there, get her out."

"Why was she taken?" Brash asked.

Badri clipped an extra power cell to his belt. "We don't know," he admitted. "All evidence seems to be that it was just a random kidnapping."

Brash groaned. "Great. A pedophile."

Fishing something out of his belt pouch, Badri grudgingly concurred, "That's the most likely scenario, yes."

"Well, I needed to shoot someone today anyway," Brash said. "I'll grab another case of ammo and be ready." There was a growl in his voice, and Iscom could tell he was still pissed off. Dune was fuming quietly.

"Rigil, you should take this as well," Badri said, his voice low. He handed over the small disk he had taken out earlier.

"What?" Iscom took it from him, flipping the small device over in his hand. "…Is this what I think it is?"

"Depends how good you are at guessing," the sergeant said evasively.

Iscom eyed it warily. "Emras, you know—" he started, but the sergeant quickly interrupted him.

"Yes, actually, I do know, so don't bother telling me," he snapped back.

"But—" Iscom tried again.

"I trust you," Badri said as Brash reentered the room, now carrying his rifle. "Now, let's get moving," Badri commanded.

Rigil looked back at the device. It was an electromagnetic pulse generator. If it went off anywhere near Badri, it would definitely injure him, and probably kill him. It could shut down his heart in less than a second.

 _Shit_ , he thought, and pocketed it.

* * *

The coordinates led them to an abandoned apartment on one of the lower levels of the city. Cautiously testing the door, Badri motioned for the others to hang back. One quick shot to the lock panel and the door slid open to reveal… the little girl.

Inside, the room was empty save for the girl, who was tied to a chair in the center. Nothing but plain rope held her in place. There were no security cameras, no guards, and as far as Iscom could tell, there were no traps either.

"This doesn't feel right," Badri said. His voice was barely more than a whisper.

Brash gave a brief laugh. "Really, commander?" he joked. Iscom shot a warning glace back at the private. Now was not the time for jokes. He silenced immediately, a guilty look lingering on his face.

"Rigil." The sergeant motioned him to the medic's position at the back on the line. Iscom went reluctantly, but he followed Badri's orders.

"This is very strange," Yuo whispered. Badri was already moving to the girl, cutting the ropes that tied her to the chair in a few swift motions.

"Yuo, take her out," Badri ordered. The private nodded, motioning to the girl. She walked to Yuo cautiously, as if she was expecting something to happen…

"I knew they'd send one of you."

"Sergeant!" It was a warning cry, let out as Iscom caught the glint of a blaster at Badri's head.

"Hold your fire!" Badri commanded, and Iscom stopped moving, his hand halfway to his blaster.

The man took a step forward, his face now in the light. He was human, unremarkable. "Look at you, pretending to care," he mocked. His eyes were sunken. "No, that was never my intention. In fact, she is free to go now that you are here. Go on." The girl looked back, worried, before running out of the apartment. Iscom had a brief urge to follow her, make sure she got back safely, but the man pressed the blaster up against Badri's head.

Iscom threatened, "Step away from him or I'll—"

"Or you'll what?" the man interrupted. "You'll kill me, as well as your commander? As right you should. This monster deserves to die."

 _Don't doubt my aim_ , Iscom thought, sliding his hand down towards his backup blaster as slowly as he could manage.

"He's not a monster!" Yuo shouted. It made no difference.

The man's face contorted into something that was almost a smirk. "Oh, but he is," he repeated. "They all are. You've just been blinded by his looks. They deceive you into thinking they're human, just like us, and then they show you what monsters they really are." He tightened his grip on the blaster, and Iscom slid his hand another half centimeter down.

I was like you, once. I thought they were human too. Even thought they could have friends. Then one of them murdered my wife and daughter, right in front of me. No provocation and no second thoughts."

"Sir—" Badri started in a somewhat desperate attempt to reason with the man.

"Shut up!" he interrupted, hitting Badri across the head with the blaster. Yuo let out a brief shout, fumbling to grab her blaster. Brash already had his blaster pointed at the man, but Iscom kept his sheathed for the moment. He knew that with his hand now positioned on the holster he could draw and shoot faster than either of the privates. The man spat, "Don't try to fool me again, you monster." He turned to each member of the team in turn, his eyes meeting Iscom's last. When the man spoke, it was a threat.

"I can show you what he really is. How much of him is _really_ human. Shall I?"

* * *

AN: There's one more (very short) chapter after this, and then the action continues in the sequel. The reason for the fic break will become... apparent...


	10. Chapter 10

"I can show you what he really is. How much of him is really human. Shall I?"

Iscom didn't even have time to swear before the man brought a small shock device down on the sergeant's head.

For a split second he could see the current jump off the shock stick and onto the band before it dissipated into Badri's head. The sergeant screamed, a noise full of pain that seemed beyond words. Iscom felt frozen for what must have been no more than five seconds, yet an entire life. He had only just started to thaw, reaching for his holstered blaster, when the sergeant stood up. His gut feeling was that something was wrong, there was no way Badri could be moving if any sort of electric shock had gone straight into his head, oh shit, the current had gone straight into his head. There was no telling what a mess that would make of his biocomputers, but he should not be able to move.

Iscom probably should have been paying more attention to what was happening, rather than what should have been happening, because something was very, very wrong.

And when Badri attacked him, that only confirmed his suspicions.

Iscom had the barest flash of white and red, pain and horror, and unsettling wrongness, before things went black.

* * *

…Well, damn.

And then…

Oh. White. That explains it. Damn, I hope Brash and Yuo figure it out.

And finally…

It really is more of a dark gray, isn't it?

* * *

-END-

* * *

AN: The story continues in _The Measure of Machines_.


End file.
